I built theaters in my last two houses. The last one was 11 speaker Atmos surround with custom twin 15" subwoofers (built myself of my own design), shakers in the furniture, and a 10' wide acoustically transparent Cinemascope screen.

You can have a wonderful theater in this space. For the best advice, head over to avsforum.com, and check out the Dedicated Home Theater sub-forum.

Anything is possible, but theose ducts seem pretty low for a projector the room seems on the smaller side for a larger screen. Are the walls actually 30x32 inside this space? It seems smaller than that. And you’ll want to project over the longer run

That looks like 9” x 9” floor tiles. They have a high probability of containing asbestos.

Why do you want a projector? With the dropping prices of large flat screen 4K TVs, I see no point in a projector, especially with your low ceiling. Also, the last time I looked, projectors were noisy.

You can't put speakers behind a TV, and the larger the screen, the more noticable having a speaker below the screen becomes. And I don't know of anyone who makes a large 2.35:1 ratio TV. Both of these things are easily done with a projector.

And if you're a fan of 3D movies (as I am), a projector is currently your only solution.

Regarding the ceiling: talk to an HVAC contractor, who is big enough to have a good sheet metal shop. The solution to the ceiling would be to revise the ductwork. If possible, recess it between the floor joists. Otherwise, reroute it.

I would be worried about a room of this size getting hot with a projector. I would personally go with a big TV, but you seem pretty set on the projector, so just keep heat in mind. I think this room could be a great theater setup. Rerouting or raising the ductwork as armchairshopper suggested would help a lot with the projector setup.

Room lighting has a definite effect on the TV and video projector viewing experience.

Most TVs do fine in a semi-lit room, but darker is better, especially for video projectors. Never place your TV on a wall opposite windows. If you have curtains to cover the windows, make sure they cannot pass light through into the room when they are closed.

Another thing to consider is the TV screen surface. Some TVs have an anti-reflective or matte surface that minimizes room light reflections from windows, lamps, and other ambient light sources, while some TVs have an extra glass-like coating over the screen panel that serves to provide extra physical protection for the actual LCD, Plasma, or OLED panel. When used in a room with ambient light sources, the extra glass layer or coating can be susceptible to reflections that may be distracting.

Also, if you have a curved screen TV another factor is that if your room has windows or uncontrollable ambient light sources the screen curvature can not only produce unwanted light reflections but also distort the shape of reflections, which can be very annoying.

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One way to find out how susceptible a specific TV might be to windows and ambient light sources to see how it looks in a brightly lit retail environment - stand both in front and off to either side of the screen and see how the TV handles brightly lit showroom conditions.

Also, if the retail location also has a darkened room for exhibiting TVs, also see they look in that environment. Just keep in mind that retailers run TVs in "Vivid" or "Torch Mode" that exaggerates the color and contrast levels produced by the TV - but that still can't hide potential light reflection problems.

I have a small flat screen TV in my lower level, opposite west-viewing windows. The TV is at an angle, so it doesn't reflect the windows too much. Except at sunset, when the sunlight is streaming in through the window, TV viewing is fine, day or night.